The Boy Is Mine

We love a catfight fight over a beautiful boy. Particularly when that boy is Michelangelo’s David. The 17-foot-tall marble wonder resides in the Italian city of Florence, where he generates around $16m a year from 1.5million visitors coming to ooh and aah and giggle at his small but perfectly formed man parts.

But the Italian state has high-powered lawyers engaged in a battle to claim the money-maker as their own. They point to documents from way back when Italy was a collection of feuding states as proof there was no Florence back then, as such, and say David belongs to the nation. But the mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi, says he has documents that prove the statue belongs to the city, saying: "I am more than happy to meet with Minister Bondi to discuss this case and avoid a petty childlike squabble and come to some agreement. But we are prepared to fight to show David is ours."

That’s the spirit: the boy is worth a battle like this. So long as they don’t split him up in the settlement.-- G. EARL